Product Description

William Mark Air Swimmers swim through the air with incredibly smooth and life-like swimming motion. Accept no imitation, this is the authentic William Mark Air Swimmer Shark and Clown! These amazing fish provide hours of remote control indoor fun in even the smallest of rooms (not for outdoor use). They require only four AAA batteries (one in the body, three in the controller) and have complete up, down and 360 degree turning control. The Shark and Clownfish is remote infra-red controlled and will respond to your inputs moving up and down most importantly left to right with fish like tail movement. Remote control has never come to life so magically! The helium filled fish body is made from durable nylon and with appropriate use will stay inflated for weeks depending on altitude. The William Mark Corporation has been dedicated to developing unique, high-quality products for extraordinary flight performance. The company was formed when Mark Forti, then a junior at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, invented the X-zyloTM for a marketing project. The product's performance amazed everyone who saw it. After stumping his physics professor as to why the object flew, Mark took it to his father, William, who worked in the aerospace industry. When William's aerodynamicist friends could not explain how it flew so far, William and Mark filed for patents and formed the William Mark Corporation.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

The idea of two large beautiful fish slowly swimming through the air propelled by nothing else but their own tails is just so great! Five stars for that. The implementations deserves less than one star. I still recommend this purchase, but be prepared for the following.

1. Check if the electric motors and the RCs work before you do anything else. The manual recommends to first fill the fish with helium. Don't do that before you check the motors and the RCs. You may need to return your merchandise right away. One of my RCs didn't work right out of the box. It had the red light flashing, so I first thought it was the motor. Then I checked the motor with the other remote and it worked. So, before doing anything else, connect each motor to the corresponding tail fin it is supposed to move, put the batteries in the motor and in the remote and see if they work.

2. If the motors and the RCs work, fill the fish with helium. It has cost me $2.50 for each at a flower section of a neighboring supermarket. You will need to refill the fish with helium about every four to eight days to keep them aswim.

2. When filling the fish with helium for the first time, make sure they pump the gas until all the small wrinkles on the fish skin disappear (the large will remain). This is crucial for gluing the fins and motors to the fish. If you try to glue the fins to a poorly inflated fish, the small wrinkles will be a big problem!

3. Attach a rope to each fish before filling. They have a hole in the middle of the belly for the purpose. Tie the ropes to your wrists or belt. When filled with helium, the fish are much lighter than air. You can easily lose your toy transporting it from the supermarket to your vehicle.

These toys LOOK great on the web site. In reality, they're inflatable nightmares -- we expected quality and educational value from Animal Planet... not in these balloons. Filling them with helium was easy... that was the end of the fun part. How do you attach fins with tape that won't stick to the balloons? Even if it did stick, how do you place those fins on marks that the directions refer to, but aren't printed on the product? The online assembly video looks so simple -- the happy little girl pulls down the clown fish that I had to wrestle repeatedly from the ceiling. The written directions are completely obtuse. The most patient of adults (us) gnashed teeth while the sweetest of children (ours) melted in a pool of tears. Merry Christmas? Ho. Ho. Ho.

These fish are magical when they work. However, they're a little more challenging to assemble than you might guess -- and my husband, after 30 minutes of struggling with the "nemo; accidentally touched it to the edge of the dining room table and, you've guessed it, the darned thing popped. Very disappointing. That said, if you are meticulous and careful, they are massive and impressive as they fly around your house. DO NOT TAKE OUTDOORS. My brother lost one that way. The instructions do tell you to keep them inside but it's small print and easy to miss. Finally, perhaps test the remote control before you spend time assembling the fish. One of ours never did connect, despite instructions on how to reset, so the fish was a beautiful balloon with no remote function.

I had an altitude problem with the shark because of where we live but with the help of the designer and the supplier all problems were resolved. The supplier was fantastic in their willingness to help and solve the challenge. My earlier review was negative but that was before I actually asked for help. I would now rate the service as outstanding.

These air swimmers do take a lot of time to fill, assemble and tweak to get them to work properly. From the time I left to fill the balloons until we were flying them was about 2 hours. The assembly process was a little complicated and very delicate. The kids really enjoyed flying the air swimmers for about 20 minutes and then they were done. These air swimmers since have fallen apart (the tape didn't last very long) and will soon be in the trash.

I'm very disappointed in this toy. We bought one for my 5 year old son and filled it at the local grocery store. It cost $10 to fill it with helium, and the very next morning we discovered it has a slow leak. My son has played with it for a day and now the tail keeps falling off because it's loosing so much helium. I can't express how disappointed I am in this toy, and for the price it should last much longer than it has. I am going to try and exchange/return it to give it another try only for my son's sake, but will have to incur yet another cost to fill the new one. Overall, the assembly is complicated, filling the helium is cumbersome and costly, it does not have the same fins as pictured, and it's not very durable. On the positive side, it is fun to play with and easy for my 5 year old to operate. In the end, don't purchase this unless you have $50 to kill on a balloon and can deal with the complications & disappointment.